


Stark Resemblance

by XtaticPearl



Series: Stark Attack [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ass-Kicking, BAMF Rhodey, BAMF Tony Stark, BAMF Women, Bickering, Big Brothers, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon Divergence - Iron Man, Child Neglect, Don't Mess With Families, Gen, Goddesses, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kierna Stark Has Issues, Kierna Stark Is Confusing And Volatile But Also Kickass, Little Sisters, Major Original Character(s), Obadiah Stane Is A Cold Stone, Protectiveness, Sarcasm, Sassy, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 13:40:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7936792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kierna took one long look at the snarky, half-dead man on the gurney trying to hold on to any thread of normality and in that one moment she knew that she was going to be stuck with him forever. Well, she was the one who escaped a good old basement to find a long lost brother. Might as well suck up and commit to the cause now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stark Resemblance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KiernaSerea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiernaSerea/gifts).



> KIERNA <3 I finally did it! The first part of the series! This one's for you love.
> 
> This is the beginning of my rehash of the entire franchise with the addition of a Stark sister, because I've always wanted to write an original character. Stay on for the ride if you find it interesting and please do leave me your feedback? <3

The light was red today. Which meant that there would be no visitors in the basement. Cadet K13RN4 checked the monitor to her right and found no anomaly, meaning that the latest test hadn't made any difference.

Falling back onto the pillow, she touched her neck, tracing the single cord that lay around it. Smoothing it over, she clasped the small pendant that had always been with her, ever since she remembered. It was called a _Triskele_   her ex-handler J2 had said once, when she was younger. A golden outer circle encircled the symbol etched in gold over a black base and the bauble was small than the pad of her thumb, but it was the only possession she had.

She thought about the last test-subject and the little girl she had seen being gutted when her powers had failed to manifest. "Girl couldn't even burn a scrap of paper," I4N, the louder and more rambunctious technician had scoffed as he had fitted the nodes and wires on K13RN4's forehead and arms for her post-manifestation test. She refused to react to the comment even though she knew what she would have told.

No person without powers would understand the simple fact that the first manifestation could not be forced. It was a curse that had to come to life at the weakest moment. 

Like her own drowning incident when she turned six. At least she thinks that she was six then, she has to use the medical chart to calculate her age after all. She had felt the water around her head quite literally move when her breathing had almost stopped.

It was only once she had been allowed out of the forced containment that she realized that she had made the water move. Hydrokinesis, J2 had said. Life-saver, K13 had thought.

The last 'test day' had also been the last straw for her. Till then, all she had seen was people either being knocked out cold and taken away or at the very least, put down through medicine. Never had she seen life drain out of someone's eyes so suddenly, never had she seen a scream stop mid-crescendo. 

Never does she want to see it again.

She lies back on the medical bed and thinks about her options. She hasn't seen a life outside the base. The farthest she went was to the first floor lab. Well, lab they called it but she hadn't seen anyone there do anything that looked like what they described people did in labs. There was nothing to compare to, so she accepted it. The point is though, that she has never gone farther than that in all her years. Curiosity made her attempt five times but she also had five electric prod marks on her body to show why they didn't work.

It was a dangerous thought, to imagine leaving base. She knew nothing about the world outside, nothing more than language and whatever she had learnt from J2 when she had been alive. J2 had said something about money and she had basic knowledge of how currency worked, but didn't have any currency to use. Or belongings to take.

It would be an incredibly stupid plan to try.

But the soulless eyes of a dead girl and the lost smile of a strange handler tell her that it was probably better to be stupid than dead. Or worse, useful and alive in the wrong hands.

She looked up at the light indicator and decided to try at the very least.

Getting out of the basement and taking out twelve guards comes as the easy part. Getting a simple file out of a cabinet and reading it turns out to be difficult.

It's a simple single-sheet file and she already knows what it will say about her. Her code, specifics and test results. But they are hers and she doesn't want to leave any part of herself here. She cannot bring herself to open the file though, not with her shivering hands, and instead tucks it inside her jacket, the one she had swiped off a knocked out guard.

The layout of the building is pretty easy once she gets through the fourth corridor from the main lab and she is thankful for her own intelligence in de-activating the alarms as she sprints down the last stretch to the back of the building. According to the layout, there should be a fence beyond which was a -

Well, beyond which was the world.

She stopped for a minute when she got out of the building and stared at the fence. It was scalable, well for her she could say that. And it could be the end of a long lived life of ignorance.

But she didn't know what lay forward. She didn't know where to start. For someone with seventeen years of being told what to do, being set free seemed like entering a killing zone.

As if on cue, the de-activated alarms rang, signalling that someone had caught up to her plan. She looked back once and turned forward, thinking about her choices. In the end, leaping off a fence seemed better than walking through a door.

\-----

"S. Stark," she read slowly as she sat huddled between trash cans in the alley she had finally stopped at after running, hiding in trucks, sneaking into buses for who knew how long. The world was loud and so  _full_. Full of people, cars, noise, homes, following eyes and unconcerned ears. She didn't know what to think of it but it definitely smelled better than the basement, so she kept up her pace and had been running till she was sure that she was not being followed. She didn't know where she was but there were no lonely trees or stretches of silent lands, so she figured she was not near the base anymore. There was no sense of time either, because she was yet to figure out how much time she had spent between truck No. 3 and car No.5. All she knew was that she was currently away from her life of seventeen years, sitting in a damp alley between two trash cans and finally reading her file.

"Stark," she repeated, tracing the letters with her fingers and sounding it out loud. Five letters, she counts and if added with the single S before it, it becomes equal to her code. Suddenly it hits her that this is the first time that she has had a name instead of a code and the next ten minutes are spent breathing heavily and erratically.

She came back to a calmer level of breathing slowly and dares to open the file again to read further. There's not much information and nothing else new. So all she had is a name.

 _Stark_. K13RN4 S. Stark

She carefully closed the file and tucked it back into her jacket, zipping up the leather and gets up to try and see more of this world. People looked her way and some stared but she was used to staring by now, from all the times the doctor and techs had observed her. She did what she used to do then and stared straight, not acknowledging them as she kept walking, trying to find a place to go.

She stopped at a place where she sees food on the display. The hesitation is immediate and crippling. She knew that she can go without food for some more time but it is right there and there aren't any guards to stop her this time. There isn't any currency on her too though, so she spent five whole minutes standing outside the place, staring wistfully at the food. In the end, the decision is made for her when she gets pushed by a couple who try to get in. Stumbling only out of shock, she looked up and sees the door closing after them. 

In the end, she ended up going in. The noise hit her immediately and she ended up crowding towards the nearest table more out of overwhelmed panic than objective. 

"Hi, I'm Carl, what'd you like today?" a man asked when he came to her table and she stared at him in confusion.

"Food?" she replied hesitantly and he raised an eyebrow but laughed a bit.

"Early morning trolling, huh? Must be lacking caffeine," he quipped and she furrowed her brows but didn't say anything. He looked at her expectantly for a minute before frowning, "Hey, you okay, right?"

She honestly didn't know the answer to that but she also knew that drawing attention to herself was the last thing she needed. So she nodded and looked at the pad he had in hand. 

"Food?" she asked again and he looked suspicious but nodded.

"So, what do you want?"

"What do you have?" she asked in reply, because that sounded safe. He looked annoyed at first but then huffed.

"Waffles, pancakes, English breakfast -"

"Waffles," she said quickly, holding on to the first word.

Thankfully he only asked a couple of more questions and she answered with whatever his first option was before he left the table. 

By the time the food came, she had pulled herself together a bit and was about to dig in when her attention was caught by the TV that was on. Somebody switched the channel from a music show to another and suddenly there was a woman who was wearing a suit and talking about the news.

"-And in other news, the recent blast and subsequent kidnapping rumors of Tony Stark has met no substantial development," the woman said and K13 whipped her head up to stare in breathless silence at the screen, "The Stark Industries' CEO has not been -"

"You want anything else?" Carl asked as he passed by her table again and she had to remember to breathe before asking.

"Who is that?" she pointed at the screen where a man's photograph had come up.

Carl frowned and looked at the screen before answering.

"That? That's Tony Stark," the sandy haired waiter answered with a loose huff, "Tony Stark? The billionaire?"

When she simply blinked and kept staring he raised an eyebrow.

"Wow, first time I've met someone who doesn't know that guy."

"He's important?" K13 asked even as her eyes flicked up to the TV before meeting Carl's surprised gaze.

"Well, he's only one of the richest dudes of the world!" he laughed, "So yeah, I'd say he's something. Guy's a brainiac and a real schmuck apparently. I dunno him from Adam or anything but all those magazines say that he went twelve for twelve with the Maxim chicks. I mean, that's gotta mean that the guy's a player, right?"

"He's smart?" she chose to ask because she had no clue what Maxim chicks meant.

"Yeah, he invents stuff, but mostly weapons stuff," Carl shrugged and K13 stored that information in her mind, "You can probably learn more about that on the internet, cause I don't really go deep into that. Gigi, that's my sister, probably knows more about Stark's life than I do."

Somebody called for Carl and he excused himself to go cater to another table, leaving K13 to her own thoughts. She focused her attention on the TV screen where the news was flashing images and videos of Tony Stark from the past. She seared his face to memory.

 _Stark_. Another Stark. Was this a popular name? Were there more Starks? Was this man anything to her? J2 had always spoken about family, whenever she was in a mood and K13 knew that people had other people whom they called that but did she have one? Was this Tony Stark one of her family? 

She studied his face on the small screen for a while, her waffles forgotten in light of this new development. Dark hair swept back, firm brown eyes that looked extremely familiar, a pattern of facial hair that looked like somebody had done a bad job of removing them completely but strangely fit his face well. He didn't wear glasses like some of her old techs, which probably meant that he had good vision. A clip showed him smiling at a couple of women. No, not smiling, she thought, that looked a little twisted. In one clip he was shaking hands with a bald man and the next clip showed that bald man talking about Tony, saying that they would spare nothing to search for him.

By the time Carl came around to ask if she wanted anything else, K13 had left the diner, her waffles half-eaten.

*******

She soon found out that she was in a place called Brooklyn Heights. As she wandered through the streets, she thought about Tony Stark. She had no idea who he was or what his name meant to her. He was in danger, the news had said, and she wondered who was helping him out of it or how he would come out of it. She didn't want to talk to people much lest they get suspicious of her but something about the name Stark and Tony Stark's face seemed to sit unsettling in her gut. 

She always knew that she could sense discomfort and danger to a level, but this was stranger than before. She had never met this man before and all she had was that her supposed name and his name had something in common. She had no idea how to go further than that and she highly doubted that Carl would help after her escape stunt from the diner. She scoured the crowd of people on the street, walking and moving about with purpose. 

She had none of that, she realized. There was nothing she had to do or knew to do in this world. Well, nothing other than living without going back to the Basement, which was now capitalized in her head.

She came to a halt on a curb where a man was sitting with a board in front of him that read about something to do with being homeless. She thought about that word, 'homeless' and if the meaning she was deriving was right, then she was that too. So she took it as a norm and went to sit beside him, tucking her legs under her and folding her hands on her thighs.

"What're you doin'?" the man asked after a minute and she turned to see him staring at her from under a brown hat with a couple of holes in them.

"I am...homeless," she said and looked pointedly at his board. He stared between her and his board before laughing shortly.

"You being funny or something?" he asked with narrowed eyes, "Where's the camera? Hmm?"

She blinked at him and frowned when he craned his neck and looked around for something.

"I don't have a camera," she said quietly, "But I am homeless too."

"And that means you gotta take my spot?" the man snorted and made a shooing motion with his hand, "Go find 'nother spot, lady. There's rules."

"Rules?" she asked in surprise, "I'm sorry, I didn't know. Could you -- could you tell me about them?"

The man blinked and stared at her for a while before laughing again.

"You pulling on me?" he chuckled and she felt frustration well within her.

"I really don't know why you're so surprised. Your board says that you are homeless too, right? So why can't I sit here?" she asked, all the panic, frustration and fear from the time she had escaped coming to a head and she swallowed hard, before scrambling to her feet, "It's okay. It's fine. I'm sorry, I'll just -"

"Hey, hey , hey," the man raised both his hands and she looked down to see him looking a bit concerned, "You okay, lady? You look like you're gonna burst anytime soon."

"I'm just--I've never been like this before," she said safely and smoothed her shaking palms on her pants. The man looked at her for a minute before sighing and gesturing to the spot she had taken before.

"Oh don't give me those eyes, come on, sit your ass down, go on," he waved and she acquiesced with a small grin that got a snort from him, "So, first time?"

"First time what?"

"Running away from your place," he said as though that was obvious. At first she froze and ran calculations on the nearest escape and the most efficient way to get away. But then she re-analyzed the question and realized that he didn't know where she had run from.

"I don't have a place," she said simply and kept her face guarded, hoping that he didn't question more. The man, thankfully, didn't even though his eyes looked sadder. She learnt that his name was Ernie and that he had lost his home due to debt. His wife had left him for someone else and he didn't have kids, though he sounded wistful when he said that. 

"So, what's your name?" he asked after a while.

"K13RN4" she replied without a thought and stilled. 

"K13 what now?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and continued before she could explain, "People name their kids in numbers now?"

"Strange people do," she said evasively and he scoffed.

"Yeah, doesn't sound like too much of a name," he informed her and she tilted her head.

"Why?"

"Why?" he repeated incredulously, "For one, nobody can call you K13RN4. That's what, that's not a name for people. It's stupid."

"It's what I was called always" she replied with a shrug.

"Well, it ain't pretty," he informed her and she smiled at his eye-roll.

They sat in silence for a while and she drew patterns on the curb with a nearby stone while Ernie closed his eyes and hummed some tune. She didn't know what she was scribbling till she realized that she was writing her code.

K-1-3-R-N-4

She stared at it for a minute and thought about Enie's words. A name. She already knew that Stark was a part of her name but she had to be called something before that name too.

She messed around with the code and wrote the 3 as a mirror image.

K-1-E-R-N-4

"Kiern4" she heard a voice and turned to see Ernie looking at her doodles with an amused quirk of his lips, "Nice. Closer to a real name. But try taking the 4 off. Here."

He borrowed her stone and extended a line from the triangle of the 4 downwards.

K-I-E-R-N-A

"Kierna?" she pronounced slowly.

"Yeah, sounds better doesn't it?" he asked, "Kierna"

"Kierna," she echoed and felt a smile bloom on her face when she liked the sound of that, "Kierna. That's nice."

"Of course, it is," Ernie huffed and winked at her before picking his tune back up, leaving her to stare at her new name.

Kierna. Kierna...Stark? Kierna Stark, she thought in her mind and found that she liked that better than her code.

Ernie turns out to be a big talker and completely unconcerned with her past, except for warning her about not doing drugs. People get into 'nasty shit' because of that, he says and she feels like he's talking from experience. She learns from him about having a job and earning money, about owning a home and maybe having a family. She asks questions about getting a job but Ernie doesn't know much about that, something she realizes is probably why he is sitting on the curb next to her. 

K13, no  _Kierna_ , has always been a quick learner and she uses that ability to her advantage. She sits beside Ernie that day and at night, he tells her that there is a place around the alley where he usually sleeps. He tells her that she shouldn't come with him, that it might be dangerous. She feels like laughing at that because he doesn't know that she is more a danger to the others than them to her here. 

Still, she respects his concern and offers to leave, thanking him for keeping her company. Ernie stares at her for that and says something that sounds like he was cursing everything good in the world. He makes her sleep in his makeshift corner that night and unbelievably stays guard for as long as he could.

Kiera quickly learns that Ernie has health problems, with his lungs and body ache, that stop him from working for the normal amount of time. She offers to get a job and help him out.

Ernie laughed till he realized that she was serious. 

"You're crazy, kid," he said when he seemed to realize how young she is. She simply nodded because that is something she has found to be true in her little adventure.

So then started her job-hunting and Kierna learnt what failure felt like when she was rejected for every job that didn't require a lot of education. She didn't say anything to Ernie whenever she came back with a rejection, but he seemed to know and distracted her mind with old stories.

Her luck took a turn when she managed to get a job as a waitress at  _Dino's_ , a diner a little far away from her and Ernie's 'home' on the street. The manager, an old, grumpy Italian, gives her the worst deal according to Ernie, but Kierna simply laughs because she cannot tell Ernie how she has had worse as a test subject for seventeen years.

Maybe it's her endurance or her will to do anything to not let go of her chance, but Kierna manages to get into Dino's good books in a month. He learns of her being homeless and his wife, who had taken to Kierna as soon as she had met her, makes him offer her a room at their place. Kierna tries to politely refuse but then when Ernie disappears one day out of nowhere, she agrees, feeling a bit alone yet glad that she had a chance to help him as long as she could.

It is at Dino Esposito's small apartment that Kierna learns more about Tony Stark. It turns out that Dino's daughter, Coco, who is just a couple or more years younger than Kierna, is a big fan of Tony. 

"He's just so hot," Coco sighs after every new nugget of information she gives and Kierna rolls her eyes at the fifteenth time. The news still declared him missing though and Kierna began musing about his rescue operations with every bit of news she saw.

She had gathered by now, after getting a brief timeline about Tony Stark's life, that he was definitely related to her. She never said anything about it to either Dino or Coco, and lied that her surname was Ern, something that got a dubious raised eyebrow from Dino. But something in her instinct forbade her from revealing anything till she had met Tony. 

By her calculations, he didn't have any parents and there was no record of him having any missing kids or siblings. But Kierna had her file which had her age and her real surname, both of which indicated that she somehow fit into his life. There was a mention of a July 5, 1991 in her file that she rationalized was her birthday, made more clear by all those times J-2 had brought her a special treat saying that it was a day better than the Fourth of July. 

She surmised by the end of her second month that Tony Stark was her only living family. And that nobody had found him from wherever he had gone missing. It made her skin itch with an unknown emotion, something that she only felt when she could identify pure souls. It always creeped J-2 and her handlers out when she could sense their soul and pronounce them as good or with darkness. She had something J-2 called Intuitive Adaptability and Empathetic Detection And Manipulation. Kierna understood that as an ability to know whom to trust and whom to not. She didn't know how she had it or why, but it seemed to be saving her life with every person she could read now, so she didn't question it.

She did however wonder about Tony Stark's protection. It had been two months, the news said, since he had gone missing after one of his weapons exhibition. Kierna knew enough about probability of survival to gather that with each day he remained missing, Tony was somewhere losing his chances to survive. 

As she thought about it one night, two months since her escape, she stared at her file in the darkness of the small room she shared with Coco. There was one sentence under her test results that she had avoided since she had first read it. But now it seemed more pronounced in relevance.

_Bloodline Tracking - Sub-level of Psychic Navigation._

If her theory of Tony Stark being someone in her family was right, then maybe she stood a chance in tracking him. The thought became deep-seated in her mind, but she did nothing about it for some time.

Till she saw the news about him being declared possibly dead.

******

"You what?" Coco asked squinting at her from her bed.

"I want to contact someone who can tell me more about Tony Stark's rescue program," Kierna repeated calmly, looking at the pixie cut, dark haired teenager who was staring at her like she was crazy.

"Uhm, why?"

"Can't say," Kierna replied and inched closer to Coco's bed when the younger girl narrowed her eyes, "Coco, I really can't say. It's just...it sounds silly, but I might have an idea on how to bring him back."

"You have an idea on how to bring back Tony Stark," Coco repeated blankly, "The guy whom the entire Air Force is looking for probably. That guy. You think you have a better idea."

"Yes," Kierna said simply.

"You realize that you sound crazy?"

"No, but I get that you think I'm crazy," Kierna said with a small smile.

Coco huffed a small disbelieving laugh and shook her head.

"You don't stand a chance," she informed Kierna with a pointed grin.

"Doesn't hurt to try, right?" Kierna countered and took a deep breath, "If later we find out that my idea could have saved a man and I didn't use it just because I thought it was crazy, then it would be almost like me being responsible for his end."

"You know, sometimes I feel like I'm talking to an alien," Coco shook her head and Kierna ducked her head with a small laugh, "Fine."

"Fine?" Kierna blinked hopefully.

"Yeah, fine, let's go stalk some celebs," Coco said with an amused smirk and a shake of her head, "What's the worst that can happen?"

The worst that can happen turns out to be Virginia Potts, Tony Stark's secretary, who tried to make them leave SI's office without even hearing a word as soon as Kierna had said the words 'I'd like to help Tony Stark'. Coco shrank visibly under Virginia's no-nonsense but formal stare and almost left the room.

Kierna didn't budge an inch.

"Please don't make me call for the security," Virginia told her in a polite tone that was nowhere near polite, "We are having an extremely trying time and we do not appreciate -"

"Help?" Kierna cut her short and surprised even herself with the razor sharp tone of her voice but she continued when Virginia paused, "Ms. Potts, I assure you, I have no intention of creating additional trouble for you. But you spent the last two months searching for him and the media has now almost declared him dead."

"And you are here to spin a tale to get favors?" Virginia asked sharply and Kierna didn't bat an eye or move back when the polite stare turned into an icy glare.

"No, I'm here to help you. Help you save a man who very well might be dying right now," she shot back and Virginia reared back, opening her mouth to snap something when the door of the office opened.

"Pepper? Roxie said that there was trouble?" a bulky looking man in a black suit said as his head peeped in and Virginia cut him a look.

"No, Happy, Ms. Ern and Ms. Esposito were just leaving," she said in a tone that dared them to say otherwise.

"Yeah, we were," Coco whispered and tried to tug Kierna to come along, but Kierna stood her ground and held Virginia's, who was apparently called Pepper, hard gaze.

"I am not leaving until I have met the person in charge of rescuing Tony Stark," she said in a soft but steel like tone, eyes meeting Pepper's straight on, "I know you don't trust me and honestly Ms. Potts, I don't care about your trust. I don't care if you don't believe me, because it is not you whom I came looking for. I am here to try and save a man who has spent the last two months in some hell-hole probably. I do not care one bit about what you think about me or my credentials, Ms. Potts, because honestly, it isn't about me. Or you. It's about knowing if Tony Stark can be saved and I promise you this, if there is the slightest chance that he can be, I will not back down. You can try to stop me with whatever force you have and maybe you'll succeed. Maybe it will be too much for me to handle. But I will still come back and I will keep trying. Because I will not stand here and let you lose a valid chance to save a man's life just because you don't have my background history or data or whatever. Now, you can either help me and I will do everything in my power to bring him back or I can do it without your help. Either way, I will try and succeed."

"How can you save him?", the man at the door asked after a brief pause in the room as Kierna held Pepper's stunned gaze.

"That I will discuss only with the person who is in-charge of his rescue," Kierna remained firm.

"Why?" Pepper asked immediately.

"Because it matters only to them and it's none of anybody else's business," she said without hesitation and Pepper's jaw ticked but she shook her head.

"No, I mean, why do you want to save him?" she asked, observing Kierna with a calculative look, "I don't think he knows you."

"I want to save him because I can," Kierna said simply, "You don't need to have somebody's acknowledgement and acquaintance to save a life, Ms. Potts."

Pepper gave her a scrutinizing stare and finally breathed out slowly.

"If you end up wasting our time, things will not go well for you," she warned Kierna lightly.

Kierna didn't reply and simply nodded. 

"Well, you better have a good chance, Ms. Ern, because Lt. Colonel Rhodes is not as patient as I am," Pepper said finally and brought out her cell phone to call someone.

"I think we're gonna die," Coco whispered in Kierna's ear.

"Nobody is going to die," Kierna replied with a soft smile in reassurance, "Everything is gonna be fine."

She doubts her own statement when she gets to meet Lt. Col. James Rupert Rhodes. James was a firm looking, calm and cool soldier who took one look at Kierna and shot Pepper a dry look.

And that was before Kierna even opened her mouth. When she did, after having demanded privacy for her and James, everything went to shit.

"Get out"

Kierna had expected this, but the swiftness with which she got the rejection made her a bit dejected. Still, she soldiered on.

"Lieutenant, you have to trust me on this," she began calmly, just a hint of imploring in her voice, "I'm not wasting your time or playing a prank."

"Yeah, that's what punks say when they're messing," James bit out and got up, ready to leave, "I suggest you leave before we get you arrested for a tonne of minor charges, kid. I don't have time for this shit."

Kierna knew that it was now or never and took her chance when she saw that she was losing James' trust. She closed her eyes and focused on the glass of water that was kept on James' table, manipulating it to float up, just the water and not the glass.

There was absolute silence around her and she opened her eyes, still holding control over the water to turn around and see James standing stock still, staring at the floating water.

"What the -- fucking hell, what is that?!" he spat out, interestingly looking more curious than horrified, "What the hell are you --  _Jesus_ , are you manipulating  _water_?"

In reply, Kierna made the liquid float in James' direction, who took a couple of steps back with a horrified expression.

"Geez, alright, alright! Stop making it float into my face!" James exclaimed and Kierna stopped immediately, but held the water there.

"Now do you believe me?" she asked quietly and James turned sharp eyes towards her.

"No," he said calmly before breathing out, "But I'm listening now."

Kierna nodded in acceptance and watched as the Lieutenant came back to sit in his chair, a wary eye on the water that was now floating back to the glass.

"Okay, so let's start with who the hell you are," James said once he had breathed in and out deeply, "Or exactly, what you are."

Kierna raised an eyebrow at that but went on to explain, without going into detail, about how she had always had these powers, how she had been trapped in an unknown basement for seventeen years, how she had escaped that place. When she finally reached the part where she explained why she was sure of being able to track Tony, she saw James look expressionless.

"I know you don't believe me," Kierna said with a hard swallow and beseeching brown eyes, "But please, I need you to trust me for now. I won't do anything to harm him or anyone. You can keep me -"

"Stop, stop, stop," James cut her short at the increasing desperation in her voice and ran a shaking hand over his face, "Goddammit, this -- this is just--"

"I'm not lying but I don't have any proof -"

"I trust you, kid," James interrupted and Kierna snapped her mouth shut with a stunned expression, "Well, I've still got my doubts about a few things but -- you're not wrong about the family thing.  _Jesus_! Nobody knew for so long..."

"Wait, what?" Kierna asked with a thudding heart-beat, "But there's no data on him having any siblings. There is no record and I -- how?"

"Let's just say that very few people know about Tony all that well," James said and this time his smile wasn't brittle or scornful. In fact, she thought he looked wondrous and awestruck in a good way. 

"So, you're saying there is a possibility?" Kierna asked hopefully, "You think there's a chance that I can really track him?"

"Only one way to find out," James said simply with a small smirk.

The vial of Tony's blood sample was brought in at the same time that James,  _Rhodey_ he insisted on being called, told Kierna that they would have to do it while on the move. He had some intel of his own of Tony being somewhere in Afghanistan's direction and he had risked his career to get permission to go on the search. Kierna got strange looks from the men who were on the base, but she kept her mind away from those thoughts. This was the first time she was going to try a bloodline tracking and a man's life was at stake. For the first time since her decision, Kierna felt panic set in as she sat on the private chopper that had been arranged for her because she wasn't allowed to go with the Air Force men. Rhodey had made that decision and Happy Hogan, Tony's bodyguard and chauffeur apparently, was to accompany Kierna in the private chopper as Rhodey and his group took their own chopper. 

"Hey, you okay?" Happy asked when he entered the chopper and Kierna realized that she was breathing hard, her head between her legs, "Hey, it's okay, don't move. Just breathe, no rush. Come on, breathe with me, kid. In and out, nice and slow. That's it, just breathe. No hurry, alright? Keep breathing."

"Sorry," she croaked out when she had her breathing under control finally, "I guess the reality struck too late."

"No problems," Happy nodded and looked at the blood vial in her hand, "So you think you can do this?"

"I'll give it my best shot," she said quietly and Happy looked like he was seeing a familiar face before he nodded again. Breathing in deep and feeling her resolve strengthen, Kierna uncorked the vial and steeled herself. She knew the basics of this, thanks to Dr. Yoni, the man who had tested her last and who kept raving about the theories he had about psychic navigation. But theory and practical usage had a difference, Kierna knew that.

Still, she swallowed hard and dipped a finger into the vial carefully and dabbed into the blood. She heard Happy make a small gagging sound but ignored it and closed her eyes. 

_One drop for the touch, one drop for the mind,_

_One bond of the blood, heart-pull of a kind._

She left herself focus on herself and her heartbeat. If she had to track him, she had to do it with the bond that she should be having from her own blood and heart. Bloodline bonds usually worked only after touch but she was making do with Tony's blood instead. Bringing the blood smeared hand close to her chest, she let herself focus on the scent and feel of the blood, supposedly her brother's blood. 

_Please, please, please let it help, please let it help..._

The tug of her heart was so sudden that she almost dropped the vial of blood, which thankfully Happy grasped from her limp growing hand, even as she kept her eyes screwed shut. Her bloodied hand was clenched tight into a fist and she could feel the thrum of her own blood connecting to the scent and feel of this new blood. She forced the burst of sensation to focus onto a single point, straining her entire mind to try and contain the power of a long-lost blood-bond awaken. It hurt like hell in her chest, like somebody had ripped something off from there was trying to stuff something back but Kierna focused with all her might. She would not lose this connection, not now, she decided and grit her cheek, biting into her cheek till blood pooled in her mouth a little.

_Come on, come on, come on..._

It came in flashes, the sensation but she held on to each one firmly. Happy put on a headset onto her head as she held on to her connection and she heard Rhodey's voice come through in her ear.

"Kierna? We're heading east now, okay? I need you to give me a reading if we're on the right track," he said calmly and she grit her teeth but focused on breathing through the power.

"Keep heading in the same direction," she said roughly after a minute and heard Rhodey's relieved sigh. They played off each other, Rhodey with his surveyed and analyzed data and Kierna with her bloodline. It was draining and for a minute into possibly hours of travel, she almost collapsed. It was only because of Happy's quick hold and steady hand that she stayed upright.

"Maybe you should take a break, kid" Happy whispered next to her in a concerned voice.

"Keep going," Kierna said in reply into her comm and heard Happy grunt something about being reckless but ignored it. Even Rhodey suggested that she take a break sometime later when Happy took control of her comm and barked that she was growing pale.

"No," she bit out in frustration, "Not till we find him."

"I know!" she heard Happy sigh into the comm but reserved her energy to keep focus on her dull bond. 

There were a lot of disagreements between Kierna and Rhodey when they finally reached Afghanistan, as their data varied. Rhodey tried arguing that he had solid data but Kierna hissed in fast depleting energy that she could feel him closer. Finally, Rhodey took the risk and trusted her despite the grumbling and they went over the vast expanse of desert that he wanted to avoid initially.

It turned out that the risk was worth it when Kierna heard a bark of joyful celebration from Rhodey's comm.

"Son-of-a-bitch!" Rhodey crowed and Kierna opened her eyes finally, blinking through the blinding spot of light.

"What?" she asked urgently and heard him laugh through relief.

"We got him! We got the asshole!" Rhodey laughed and Kierna felt herself sag with relief. It didn't take long for her to catch sight of Rhodey's chopper land in the desert sand and even from her distance, she could see him jump out of the chopper to run towards a lone figure kneeling on the sand. 

"Jesus Christ!" Happy swore and Kierna laughed hysterically when she realized that their ridiculous plan had actually worked. 

They landed the private Stark chopper too and Happy caught her when she stumbled out, but she patted him away and strode ahead towards Rhodey's chopper where they were loading in Tony Stark.

"Kierna!" Rhodey called out with a tired and worried but extremely relieved face when he caught sight of her slip into the chopper, "Christ, are you okay? You look like a ghost."

"How is he?" Kierna asked instead of replying about herself and looked at the gurney that was being swarmed by men now, trying to check up on the rescued man.

"He is fine and who's the lady I'm hearing?" a voice, feeble but cheeky, came from the gurney and Rhodey rolled his eyes but beckoned Kierna to come closer. 

"Tones, this is Kierna," Rhodey introduced to the almost drowsy man who seemed to have something metal-like in his chest and Kierna stared at it in frozen horror.

"I didn't know the Air Force was robbing the cradle now, Rhodes," the man,  _Tony_ , commented and Kierna snapped her eyes up to meet his amused ones that were regarding her warily.

"We're not," Rhodey informed him, " Kierna came as a ...consultant."

"Really?" Tony drawled, disbelief evident even in his loopy state, "Of what exactly?"

"Of you," Rhodey replied in an amused tone and Tony's eyes flicked towards him skeptically before he regarded Kierna again.

"I don't remember having this young a girl in -"

"I helped track you," Kierna said after long last, cutting short Tony's misunderstanding.

"You've got tech better than the USAF?" Tony asked and Kierna remembered news of Stark Industries providing tech support to the Air Force.

"I had something better," she said with a smirk and saw Tony raise a weak eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Your blood," she replied and for a moment Tony looked blank before he breathed calmly.

"Well, I guess vampires  _are_ real," he stated before passing out under the medication that was being administered through the emergency IV.

Kierna took one long look at the snarky, half-dead man on the gurney trying to hold on to any thread of normality and in that one moment she knew that she was going to be stuck with him forever.

Well, she was the one who escaped a good old basement to find a long lost brother, she thought, might as well suck up and commit to the cause now.

"He's not going to believe me, is he?" she asked Rhodey calmly, without looking away from Tony. Rhodey sighed and placed a hand on Tony's shoulder.

"Nope", he said honestly before turning to look at her, "But something tells me he's not the only one who inherited the Stark stubbornness."

Kierna didn't reply to that because she had no clue about what that meant but she did resolve in her mind that she wasn't going to give up without a fight.

Not now that she had her second chance at life right in front of her.

 

 


End file.
